What exactly is a black hole? Black holes are essentially massive stars that collapse on themselves, at least that is what scientists believe. It can also be described as a place in space where gravity pulls so strongly that light can not even escape, that is why they are invisible. Luckily, scientists have special telescopes with tools that help them locate where black holes are based on how the stars around them act. When a star is close to a black hole, high-energy light is produced which helps us locate where they are.
One misconception people may have about black holes is that they suck in everything like a cosmic vacuum. When in reality, they just have a very strong gravitational field. Actually, they have said that if you replace the Sun with a black hole, the Earth would continue to orbit the black hole just like it does with the Sun. Black holes create such a deep well in space, that nothing has energy greater than that hole to climb back out. A theory regarding black holes is that they can spawn new universes. Which is weird, because we are not entirely sure if other universes even exist. This whole theory however, is still being actively researched today, but they are using Einstein’s theory of relativity to help guide them. Scientists also believe that every galaxy has a supermassive black hole that is sort of “anchoring” each galaxy. The black hole in our galaxy, Sagittarius A in the Milky Way, is more than four million times more massive than our Sun and almost 30,000 light years away. The black hole at the moment is pretty dormant, but it is believed that over two million years ago, it erupted in an explosion and may have been visible from Earth. Something that I thought was interesting is that black holes actually slow down time. And what they used to describe this is Einstein’s theory of general relativity and the twin experiment. Essentially, one twin stayed on Earth while the other one went in space and came back to Earth but at the speed of light. The one that travelled through space is much younger because the faster you move, the slower time passes for you. So, black holes slow down time because of how strong their gravitational pull is. NASA has been and will continue to use space crafts and telescopes to learn more about black holes and help scientists answer the unknowns.
References
Dunbar, Brian. “What Is a Black Hole?” NASA, NASA, 21 May 2015, www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-a-black-hole-k4.html
Jessica Orwig and Ali Sundermier, Business Insider. “10 Mind-Blowing Scientific Facts About Black Holes.” ScienceAlert, www.sciencealert.com/10-mind-blowing-scientific-facts-about-black-holes.
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